


I Wish I Could Have Loved You

by Cant_We_Just_Dance



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abandoning, Alexander is a dick, Angst, Breakups, Cheating, Falling Out of Love, Heartbreak, Infidelity, Jamilton - Freeform, Laflams, M/M, Multi, Too Many Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cant_We_Just_Dance/pseuds/Cant_We_Just_Dance
Summary: When the sky is freckled with the stars in their eyes that will surely fall to form diamond-tears in morning light, Alexander reflects on what might have been, and if were he a better man, what would have been.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is @jamisahivemind from tumblr! Make sure to comment, kudos, and hang out with me over on the hellsite!

The world has a rather odd tendency to keep spinning, regardless of if the people on it wished for such a thing, or not.

However, on such a cold winter night as the one it happened to be, it seemed to Alexander that the only thing spinning was his mind. Each thought racing through and bouncing off the walls of their bedroom, off the dresser left half-open by John, and the sheets tangled between Lafayette’s limbs that weren’t contorted around their freckled lover. Some trails of his mind wound like thread around his head, twisted into the messy braid that John had sleepily tangled for him when he arrived home at an unreasonably late hour.

As usual. 

When had such a thing become usual? Certainly not until after the sun had set, John’s paint palettes spilling over their skin as their kisses were tinged with tangerine and daisies and sunflowers bloomed on their cheeks. And yet, it must have occurred before Lafayette pulled two glimmering stars out of the sky and embedded them into golden bands for Alexander and John, a physical embodiment of his devotion and affection for the two men. Perhaps it was when Lafayette and John rejected the idea of marrying each other, confident in the knowledge that their Alexander did not deserve to be left out in such a significant way.

Either way, Alexander’s hair was in a messy braid, tied off at the end with a tired kiss and an emerald-green ribbon. It was his own fault that his arms were empty, and he was not enveloped in a warm embrace. In a kiss and a smile that was almost not-quite there. In the small fragment of the universe that seemed perfectly fitted for just them. In hindsight, this entire situation could be blamed upon him, and rightly so.

At any point in time, he could have altered the way they found themselves, now. Rejecting the extra class in college would have prevented himself from becoming acquainted with Lafayette. Arguing that they shouldn't be doing this, when the taller man pulled him into a kiss behind the nightclub that he found himself dragged to nearly every weekend. Avoiding the man whose freckled dotted his skin like the stars in the sky that must have been formed perfectly, just for him- telling him that they weren’t meant to be, when the other man whispered such a thing on the grassy field in the middle of summer.

Saying ‘no’ when Thomas had pulled him into a warm embrace months ago, gazing into his eyes so intensely that Alexander could have sworn the man was telekinetic, or at least attempting to be. Instead, he had sealed their fate- and the nearly nonexistent distance between them- with a searing kiss, burning through his heart and igniting embers he hadn’t known weren’t already glowing red-hot.

Sitting up and shaking the covers off his legs, as well as the ideas out of his mind, Alexander stood, not sparing a glance behind him at the men still sleeping peacefully in the iridescent moonlight that bathed the room in satiny silence. Footsteps toward the closet seemed like thunder rolling in from the horizon, the sound so intruding on the quiet they’d been lulled into. The closet door creaked upon being opened, as was typical for their closet. Such creaking was almost familiar, the sound waves caressing his cheeks like chaste kisses past midnight in the park.

Alexander leaned over and picked up a heavy duffel bag, hoisting it up over his shoulder and fastening the strap, making sure that it would not fall from his body due to weight. Creaking closets closing, and footsteps retreating backwards slightly, and the rustling of the canvas fabric, and all of it was nearly loud enough to mask the quiet yawning from behind him.

“Mon cheri?” Lafayette asked, his voice hoarse from the heavy hold of sleep that he had yet to fully break free of. “What are you doing? Come back to bed…”

“I…” Alexander murmured, refusing to turn and make eye contact with the focus of inevitable heartbreak. The shame that tugged on his shoulders was not entirely unexpected, but far more unwelcome than it had any right to be. His shame had not been why he was leaving his home during an hour where only illegitimate lovers and softly whispered secrets should be present- so why did it claw at his heart as it did? “I need to go to my study. There’s work to be done, and you know me, Laffy.”

A rather unexpected pang of hurt flooded his mind, emotions racing through at the same pulsing speed that thoughts had previously possessed. He had no right to refer to Lafayette by such a nickname, such a loving word that should be reserved only for those held close to one’s heart. And Lafayette? Lafayette would not hold Alexander’s memory anywhere close to himself, come morning light.

“Don’t work… Work’s not important, now… Cuddles are important…” Lafayette murmured, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and using his free arm to pull John’s unconscious body even closer. “Come to bed n’kiss me and sleep, love…”

Alexander set down his duffel bag, sighing softly at the sudden lack of weight pulling on his shoulders. Turning slowly, Alexander returned to the bed, kneeling next to Lafayette and peering over the taller man’s arms to catch a glimpse of the starlight night sky that was somehow wonderful enough to love them. Lafayette smiled up at Alexander, the kind of smile one can only possess when they are not entirely aware of what is to come. It is the smile of a man just before he is to be executed, the smile of a ballerina before the twist of her ankle, the smile of Lafayette, too tired to properly revel in the last lingering bits of affection that Alexander had for him.

“I can kiss you, but then I’ve gotta go,” Alexander whispered softly, smiling remorsefully down at Lafayette’s dark eyes that had once held his universe beneath those eyelashes.

Pouting up at him for only a moment, Lafayette reached up eagerly and giggled softly as Alexander leaned down and pressed their lips together. Guilt found its way to Alexander’s heart like frost on the morning of a midwinter day. Kissing Thomas was fire and heat and the kind of warmth one can only know if they have been encased in the embrace of the one they truly loved.

Pulling away- far too late for Alexander’s taste, and far too early for Lafayette’s- and offering up one more weak smile, Alexander left the bed once more, picking his bag up off the floor and fastening the strap over his shoulder. He took a deep breath in, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and watercolor paint and somehow lingering laughter. Maybe, just maybe, if he could remember the distinct aura of their bedroom… He wouldn’t have to pretend to miss it. To miss them.

The creaking this time was from the door that led to the hallway, and before Alexander could step out, a voice called out from behind him.

“Love you, mon cheri,” Lafayette called, words half-slurred and mind half-off as he slipped beneath the warm cloak of sleep once more.

Alexander sighed, leaving the room, and couldn’t bring himself to close the door entirely without whispering a response.

“And I wish I could have loved you, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t really think he loved us,” John whispered into the cold night air, words twirling like bits of dust and floating down down down onto the crumpled sheets of the too-big bed. Too big for just the two of them.

Lafayette turned his head, showing red eyes and tear stained cheeks from the events of the day. “Mon cher, I do not think that such things should be said before we know the full story,” he reasoned, reaching out to caress his lover’s freckled cheek that was equally tear stained.

John pulled away.

“I don’t think we should act as if Alex really cared about us in any way, shape, or form,” John spat, his gaze so sharp that one may even consider it a glare. “He left us, Lafayette. He left for his coworker, some asshole that he always complained about... How horrible was I that he had to leave with someone he despised, and saw that as a better option?”

“Alexander left us because he was very sick-”

“Alex wasn’t sick!” John cut him off, tears forming in his eyes as he sat up and pulled his knees up to his chest in the dark void of lost emotion. No hatred, no spite, no desperation, just... Emptiness. “Alexander wasn’t sick, he was perfectly fine, except for the problem of not having a heart, apparently.”

“John, I know it hurts, but Alexander broke up with us because he did not want us to see him suffer as he will,” Lafayette said softly, sitting up and gazing pityingly at his boyfriend. Reaching out with his hand, he gently grasped John’s own freckled hand, like small flecks of paint splattered onto the sky as if stars could be seen during the day.

John pulled away.

“He didn’t even break up with us, Gilbert,” John pointed out, the emptiness now flooding into his voice, the tone not faltering or crackling like old pavement, simply flowing as if it were forever steady. He had already sobbed enough for a thousand lifetimes- the time to cry in Lafayette’s arms was over. “He left in the middle of the night and all he did was write a note. Two sentences- two fucking sentences! What, are we not worth a full paragraph?! He loves to write, why can’t he fucking write when we most need his words? Why didn’t he tell us something was wrong, why didn’t we notice, why wasn’t I good enough for him?! Why wasn’t I enough?!”

“You are more than enough, John,” Lafayette assured him, moving so that he was directly in front of the other man, making eye contact that felt far more lifeless than it should. “I have loved you since the day I met you, and I have loved you every day since. What Alexander did, he did because of selfish reasons. Justifiable reasons, yes, but selfish all the same. You aren’t selfish, though, are you?”

“Yes-”

“No!” Lafayette interrupted, pushing back tears of desperation that had found their way into his eyes, cutting the back of his mind like diamonds falling from the ancient crown of a kingdom in ruins. He stared at John with a fierceness that had only before been seen by those who dared to cause pain to the ones he held as close to his heart as he did John. “You, John Laurens, are the single most amazing, wonderful person I’ve ever met! I have never, nor will I ever, love someone else nearly as much as I love you. I would spend every waking moment with you, and every slumbering one as well, if I could. I will never love anyone more than I love you, and I have never put anyone before you- I love you too much for that.”

“...Is this why Alex left?” John asked softly, his voice no longer empty, but sounding more like shards of broken glass falling from a newly shattered mirror. The reflections falling apart and piecing away as did hope of repair any time soon, small images of himself no longer finding their way into the light, opting instead to be shielded in the safety of darkness’s embrace.

“What?” Lafayette whispered, his words more like a soft breath that lacked any form, floating around the sky like storm clouds that never delivered the rains they promised. “What do you mean, love?”

“You said that you love me more than you love anything or anyone else,” John began, his voice starting out tentative but quickly becoming sharp with every syllable. “But we were all together, with Alex. Did you not love him? Were you ignoring him in favor of me? Because in all honesty, that’s exactly what it sounds like. Alex felt like he wasn’t loved enough, so much so that he went to someone else for the affection that he couldn’t find with two people he’d been with for years. I... I love him. I loved him. I tried so hard to make him know that I loved him, and all day I’ve been thinking that he left because I wasn’t doing a good job of that, but... I think I know better, now. I think I did a damn good job- but you? You don’t love Alex. That’s why you were so calm all day, when you found all his stuff was gone, when you read the note. You didn’t cry; I did. 

Because you didn’t love him. But I did.”

“John,” Lafayette pleaded, eyes wide with the realization that this, these words, was what John believed to be the absolute truth in every meaning of the word. He reached forward quickly, desperate to feel that smooth skin beneath his fingertips, to calm down the last bit of a lover he had left, to have something that felt like anything-

 

 

John pulled away.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it, please remember to comment your thoughts on the fic, your favorite parts, or potential improvements!


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